New-to-me articles, essays, blog posts, and so forth from the writing, reading, and publishing part of the Internet (or, if you prefer, interwebs). Hey! Since I’ve been collecting articles and posts I’d like to share faster than my monthly posts allow me to share, I will occasionally be posting these round-ups twice a month. Sometimes, like this month, there’s just so much I want to share, and I see no sense in making you scroll through pages and pages when I can bundle ’em into separate posts for ease of reading.

The Literary Lab: Lies You Believe “As writers, especially new writers, we believe a lot of things people tell us. Many new writers read blogs like a hungry bear, craving whatever direction they can find.”

In a similar vein, K.M. Weiland talks about breaking the rules “Captain Barbossa’s words in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl apply just as much to writers as to his grubby chums: “The code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”

Rules of a different sense are addressed by A.J. Scudiere at Grasping For the Wind: The Rules of SciFi. “Though the rules of SciFi are limitless and contradictory, sub-genre based and infinitely flexible, they are only so until the story starts. Once on the road, the rules morph from suggestion to law and shall be broken only at great peril.”

Gillian Pollack talks about Women’s Magic over on Mary Victoria’s site. “So many fascinating women don’t know how amazing they are, because there are not nearly enough women like them in their fiction, women like them who nevertheless experience magic and adventure. “

Mary Victoria has a nice series of guest posts in February about writing strong women. The post I linked to, above, is part of that series–really the whole shebang is worth reading.

At Omnivoracious, author Kameron Hurley has a few things to say about “Fearing the Woman in the Dark Alley.” “Hot pants, tattoos, over-the-shoulder glances; these are largely faceless heroines, women whose skin we can neatly slip into. They are witty and know how to use a weapon, but for all the leather pants and tattoos, they are conflicted just as often with love as the new supernatural powers they wield.”

Mark Charan Newton talks about The Fantasy of Development, a post (with awesome, thoughtful comments) on diversity in Fantasy (and science fiction). “…which is interesting and worth taking a look at, but generally suggests to us that the the SF genre is dominated by white straight males writing books about white straight males.”

Hal Duncan responds, at length, to John Mullan’s write-up in The Guardian. Duncan’s post, “With all Due Respect,” addresses the concept of genre and also diversity and inclusion far more eloquently than I could hope to. “All works of fiction sit in one genre or another, don’t they? Just as all human beings have skin of one colour or another. Unless certain genres, like certain colours, somehow… don’t count.”

M. John Harrison has his own response to the above-mentioned Guardian article. “The sooner literary fiction recognises & accepts its generic identity, the sooner it can get help. One of the more obvious results of generification is that–as with gentrification–blandness sets in, whether you’re knocking out…vampire romances or contributing to the high-performing post-Austen industry.”

On Racialicious, Tami Winfrey Harris asks the question “In your consumption of media, which is better–to be triggered, to be a token or to be erased?” “During the hiatus of HBO’s True Blood, Renee, Paul and I have been exploring other representations of the urban fantasy genre–from book series to the teen angsty CW show Vampire Diaries. In doing so, we have confirmed what we already suspected: That is that the genre is notoriously bad at characterizations that are not of the white, straight, male variety. (Making it much like, y’know, every other genre.)”

Advice for Creative People, from the Fan to Pro blog: “Think of your project like it’s your kid: take care of it every day, understand that it means much more to you than it ever will to other people, and trust that there is no shame in getting it some extra help if need be.”

from Daily Writing Tips: 40 twitter hashtags for writers. “Using relevant hashtags in your own tweets also increases the likelihood of others seeing your post and becoming a follower. They’re a great way to engage with a particular community of Twitter users. “